Tara doesn’t know what is happening to her when she repeatedly wakes up naked in her cellar. In an attempt to figure out if she’s sleepwalking, or if something more troubling is at play, she sets up cameras to determine if she should seek professional help—or call the cops. The truth, however, is far more alluring than she ever imagined.

Content Warning: This story has elements of erotic horror, and due to the story’s structure and its conflict of missing memory, the question of consent may come across as dubious before reaching the resolution. This may be distressing to some readers.

EXCERPT:

She envied the women lucky enough to be destined for something beyond Midgard, this human world. Just like she pitied the others, like her, who only remembered when their dark elf lovers visited them once in nine nights.

The stress and fear had been terrible, but other women had no clue that anything out of the ordinary ever happened to them. Not knowing was never better, whether the knowledge was good or bad. That probably made her selfish, but the reality of losing her memories of him were devastating, that she’d think he was hurting her when he’d never done anything without her consent. It wasn’t fair to either of them. They deserved so much more than fate allowed.

The shadows shifted, like he wanted to reach out and touch her but thought better of it due to the light of her phone. “No, you are not my mate. We take lovers, but they are not meant to remember us. This is for our safety and to protect humans, as a whole, from fearing the unknown. Most of us move on after one night with a human, but it’s difficult when we appear to be a shadow in the night. We are mistaken for ghosts or demons. Monsters.” He laughed. “You thought I was an incubus.”

She smiled at the memory.

“If a woman is willing to forego memory of us for repeat visits, we are happy to return. We usually are better at hiding our presence, and I failed you by not keeping myself a secret outside of what little time we have together. It was selfish.”

She wasn’t much better, knowing how she was freaking out but making the same choices week after week, refusing to leave him before she had to. Playing that stupid game with herself the last time on camera—though that video had been hot. Tara was far more to blame for her own stress than he was.